The Hurley Gauntlet

Unlike most guilty food purchases which are subject to judgment by at least one other person, the vending machine experience is private; it's just you, a dollar bill, and the kind of distorted rationale that leads you to believe the calories in miniature cookies and oil-soaked cashews somehow don't count.

Low-carber though I try so hard to be, late one night last month, a skipped lunch and sheer want for sugar led me to ask a colleague where I might find ELLE's own snack dispenser.

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Armed with a handful of change, I walked the length of the hallway to which I was directed, took the first of my two quick lefts, and then, without warning, stopped so dead in my tracks I almost tipped forward in my patent pumps.

There, hanging life-size on my left, just steps from the king size pouch of original-flavor Mike & Ikes that was to have been mine, was my conscience looking svelte as hell in a tangerine bikini.

After a good minute of head-tilted staring, I retreated back to my office empty handed to ask for new directions. This time, to the nearest late-night bodega.

I can dismiss the silent judging (or the paranoid perception thereof) from a middle-aged man behind a counter, but a 360° view of a circa-1995 Elizabeth Hurley caught in awe of her own sweat-slicked tautness? That's a different story altogether. Call me weak, call me superficial, but I don't ever see myself winning, nor ever again engaging in that hallway face-off.